Chapter III 1927 – Year for Heroes and Headlines The year 1927 was called a time of Ballyhoo and Ford and the Hamilton, “fireproof, you know;” they Hoopla and Wonderful Nonsense, a time when stared at the new Stinson, “built right here in everything was bigger and crazier and publicized Northville;” they tugged at the taut wires of the with more headlines than anything that ever sturdy Wacos and peered inside the cabin of the happened before. yellow painted Ryan, said to be just like Lindy’s, It was a time for Home Run Kings and Flagpole except this one was all fixed up with blue mohair Sitters, Beauty Queens and Talking Movies, Race seats like a fine automobile. Riots and Lynchings and Chicago Gang Wars, The spectators watched the airplanes run through Mississippi Floods and Big Radio Broadcast Hook- their takeoff and landing tests and they talked of Ups and Record Airplane Flights. People called one newsreel pictures they’d seen: of transatlantic another Sheiks, and Shebas; they said things like record seekers struggling to take off; “make their “You’re darned tootin,” and “he knows his onions.” getaway,” as the papers called it, dangerously Flaming Youth drove their Whoopies down the overloaded with hundreds of gallons of “high Main Drag and picked up Daring Flappers who test gasoline.” wore their skirts Two Inches Above the Knee and And the tour officials, mindful of all this scare smoked Tailor-Mades and drank Bootleg Hooch talk, changed the rules to eliminate the full-throttle from Hip Flasks just like their Boy Friends did. And racing of the previous year; for 1927, a Perfect they tuned in Jazz Bands on Superhet Radio sets and Score would require only a leisurely “85% of listened to Hot Numbers like “Baby Face” and maximum speed.” Another change in the scoring, “Five Foot Two Eyes of Blue” and “I Wish That I hotly debated by pilots, was the “Multi-Engine Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate.” Rule,” which provided that a plane with more than It was a time to worship heroes: Heavyweight one engine should be charged in the Formula with Fighters, Movie Stars, and Aviators. And now, in only the engine power actually required to keep it May of 1927, there was a new aviator hero, a aloft — a lower figure than its total power. The winged knight called “The Lone Eagle” who flew contestant must demonstrate this in a test, but the 1 nonstop from New York to Paris and in that 33 /2 test was accomplished at a comfortably safe altitude hours, became the greatest popular hero in the over Ford Airport and required only that the plane history of flight; a man acclaimed as no other before make a gentle climb while the pilot slowed up one or since, including the Wrights and Lincoln Beachey engine at a time, to idling. No minimum load was and all the Aces of all the wars put together, and all specified, and veteran flyers said the whole thing the men who would one day walk on the moon. was very much unlike the actual panic that occurred Charles Lindbergh and his Ryan monoplane set when a bi-motor or tri-motor had an engine stop off the greatest boom in flying ever seen. Now, suddenly on takeoff, or in a steep climb from a small everyone must Use the Air Mail, Travel By Air, Buy field. Then, everything happened at once, with the Airport Bonds, Buy an Airplane, Learn To Fly. failed propeller stopped dead and trying to drag the And while only fourteen airplanes competed in ship down with it, the airplane yawing wildly as the the 1927 National Air Tour — perhaps because the desperate pilot jammed on full opposite rudder and factories were all too busy filling orders — the pulled the plane up into an even steeper climb, or spectators came by the tens of thousands to pour even a stall or spin. through the gates to Ford Airport; to talk and look Such accidents were common for tri-motored and marvel…. airplanes, and many pilots believed that more They thumped the corrugated metal skin of the engines simply meant more trouble. But the tour 43 Copies of this book may be ordered at www.NationalAirTour.org or by calling 800-225-5575 © 1972, Lesley Forden; 2003 Edition © 2002 Aviation Foundation of America Rules Committee wanted to encourage transport The Advance plane got through to Boston, word plane entries, and the rule stood. was sent back to Schenectady for the tour flyers to The 1927 tour was off on June 27, with C.F. come on. And so they charged aloft into the fog – “Boss” Kettering manning the starter’s flag and the thirteen airplanes, all bunched up in ragged Ford Motor Company band marching up and down formation, following along and bouncing in one blaring away on popular airs, with an occasional another’s prop-wash as they brushed hills and tree- Turkey In The Straw kind of tune for square dance tops and telephone wires trying to stay underneath enthusiast Henry Ford. Record crowds turned out as the blinding low clouds and make their way through the tour planes progressed through Buffalo and the Berkshires. Geneva and Schenectady, where on the second Six of them gave up: old pilots rather than bold morning out they were all held up by rain and fog pilots. Four came down in Massachusetts, one shrouding the hills and blocking the way to Boston. blundered through and overshot to Newport, Rhode The Advance plane went on ahead to have a look, Island and Frank Hawks nearly killed himself and while the others waited and talked and read the his wife and two other passengers when he tried to newspapers, with their big headlines of the latest climb up through a hole, lost control of his Ryan and ocean record flights. Two young Army flyers named fell down through the clouds in a screaming Maitland and Hegenberger were nearing Hawaii in a graveyard spiral, with a last-second recovery and Fokker Tri-Motor, first to cross from the California landing in a beet field. mainland. Another plane had taken off from Those who did push on to Boston were met and Oakland right behind them, flown by an airmail driven in shiny new Hupmobiles to the Hotel Lenox pilot named Ernie Smith, but this plane had turned and the inevitable banquet, followed by the in- back. And Commander Byrd and his three-man evitable entertainment, a play at the Park Theatre, crew were finally off Roosevelt Field in his Fokker, “The Cat And The Canary.” heading out over the Atlantic…. Next day, heading for New York they all cruised Byrd had waited and waited, ostensibly for bravely across Long Island Sound, miles offshore exactly right weather conditions; now he was off in like the transoceanic heroes everyone talked about. what turned out to be very bad weather conditions. And at Roosevelt Field and downtown at the The tour flyers, talking about it, wondered if the Pennsylvania Hotel, and wherever flyers gathered suave Commander might have become upset by the they talked of the record setters; of the Army’s angry letters and telegrams he had received from Pacific triumph in what seemed a comparatively irate fans; zealots caught up in the flying fever of uneventful flight of 25 hours and 51 minutes — and that wild summer who called Byrd a coward not fit of Byrd and his crew and their Atlantic struggle of to wear the Navy uniform, for having let Lindbergh something over forty hours…. and Chamberlin get across to Europe ahead There would be many stories later: how the big of him…. Fokker got away from pilot Bert Acosta in the black The 1927 tour pilots competed for news headlines with many other heros…. Chamberlain and Levine (Wright Aeronautical Corporation) 44 Copies of this book may be ordered at www.NationalAirTour.org or by calling 800-225-5575 © 1972, Lesley Forden; 2003 Edition © 2002 Aviation Foundation of America Maitland and Hegenberger (Willis Nye) Byrd’s “Giant Fokker,” which used a ramp to get started. (S. J. Hudek) And the Dole Race to Hawaii, remembered for planes lost at sea, and for crashes on land. Here at the Oakland Airport takeoff, Norm Goddard’s EI Encanto lies crippled, at left; Jimmie Irving’s Breese Pabco Pacific Fiver, just off, will also crash. (The Dole Company) 45 Copies of this book may be ordered at www.NationalAirTour.org or by calling 800-225-5575 © 1972, Lesley Forden; 2003 Edition © 2002 Aviation Foundation of America 1927 THE THIRD TOUR 46 Copies of this book may be ordered at www.NationalAirTour.org or by calling 800-225-5575 © 1972, Lesley Forden; 2003 Edition © 2002 Aviation Foundation of America night somewhere off Newfoundland and fell out of they were trapped in the night and wandered around control toward the sea, to be righted at the last and finally crash-landed back on the French minute by Bernt Balchen. And of navigator Rex coast again…. Noville knocking out the radios when he got his big And so the tour flyers need not explain their own feet mixed up with the radio wiring on the cabin blundering through the mountains of New England; floor. And how they finally made it through to the rather they could admit to being heroes, battling French coast while it was still light enough to have through the fog just like Commander Byrd. And made a bee-line for Paris ahead of darkness and every flyer in the tour was indeed a hero, especially more fog, except that Byrd refused to change his if he wore helmet and goggles and plus four golf flight plan, which called for a longer route, so that knickers and a suede jacket.